“I hate to say it, but, in playing games, to go out in that arena and hear that there are more people cheering for them than for us — you know, I’ve never been associated with a team that has ever done that, and this is something that exists here.”

After going down 4-6 in the 1st set tiebreaker today, Andy Murray cracked his racquet on the floor of the O2 Arena, visibly frustrated. After all, he had just lot what ended up being the biggest point of the first set (maybe the whole match), and handed a minibreak to his Swiss rival. As the Scot walked to his chair to pick up a new stick, you could hear a smattering of boos coming from the stands.

To the crowd. You’re hired. Actually they already are as most are My staff. I bought them tickets and gave them 90mins off. You’re welcome

Yes, Andy Murray, on his way to being Scottish again after a lengthy spell as a Brit, was getting booed in a tennis match that was being played within the confines of the United Kingdom. The same country Andy Murray represented at this year’s Olympics.

A little later, at deuce in the eventually key third game of the second set, after Andy Murray got pegged back to deuce after being up 40-0, the ESPN announcing crew got into a debate trying to estimate the crowd support in percentages. Brad Gilbert, who was sitting courtside for the match, said that in his mind, the crowd was split 60-40. In favor of Roger Federer.

This was not that surprising to me, really. I had actually predicted this kind of crowd support in yesterday’s picks, and I had been proved right: instead of a sympathetic Olympic crowd, Murray got the same crowd support he got at his year’s Wimbledon final. Which means he again felt pretty much how the Atlanta Hawks and their coach feel whenever they play a more famous rival: “ (you) hear that there are more people cheering for them than for us “.

But you’re playing at “home”.

*****

Murray’s biggest problem wasn’t the crowd, really. The Scot’s issues were the same that tipped the Wimbledon final in favor of Roger Federer. They are issues of tactics, strengths and weaknesses within this match-up. They are the same problems that made me think after watching Federer claim his seventh Wimbledon earlier this year that Andy Murray would never win a Grand Slam as long as Roger Federer stood in his way.

Let’s talk about those issues:

1. Andy Murray’s unwillingness to go down-the-line with his backhand.

This is utterly problematic for Murray, since it simplifies things for Federer: the Swiss knows that Murray will go exclusively cross-court in their backhand exchanges, and can focus solely on waiting for the right shot on which he can run around his backhand rather than having to worry about covering the deuce court.

You really do not want to make things simple for your opponent, and you really don’t want to play to their strengths. Federer’s inside-out forehand is most definitely a strength. And he’s Roger Federer, so you definitely don’t want to make things any easier for him.

2. Andy Murray’s second serve.

Today, Federer just obliterated the Scot’s second serve. In the first set, Federer always looked to run around the backhand return and hit forehands, and he was able to create significant pressure by doing so.

What’s worse is what little variety or depth Murray gets on that second delivery. Yes, Murray is probably the best on tour in terms of defending his second serve after it gets attacked, but when you have someone as ruthless as Federer, having to constantly defend your second serve becomes a sort of torture.

How comfortable was Federer handling Murray’s second serve? Here’s a stat, via Amy:

Another comfort fact: the Swiss chipped and charged away when up a set and 4-2 in the second. He did it twice, and the second time it set up a break point for the clinching double break. It was easy for him to time the backhand slice return and move forward – he knew exactly where the ball was coming.

The devastating side-effect of attacking Murray’s second delivery was that Federer got a look at more and more of them, as the Scot’s first serve percentage went down.

Just look at the stats:

Set 1:

Set 2:

3. Andy Murray’s forehand return of serve

At Wimbledon, it was deflating for Murray to see that he had no answer for Federer’s great wide delivery. However, at the Olympics and then in Shanghai, Murray had gotten a better sense of when that serve was coming, and even punished quite a few good Federer serves with thumping forehand returns. Today he tried to do the same, but only got one of those in play. He never really got a grip on that deuce court return of serve, and even seemed flatfooted when trying to hit pseudo-aggressive forehand returns that missed the court by some margin. All of this means that Federer had an easier time picking his spots on his serve.

Which can only spell danger if you’re on the other side of the court.

4. Andy Murray’s forehand defense

One of the main reasons Novak Djokovic produced his incredible 2011 season was that he took his forehand defense up a notch. Actually, quite a few notches. Andy Murray is far from reaching those heights: today, when Federer attached the deuce court, Murray couldn’t really get back in many points because his replies ended up in the net or landed short, ready for Federer to attack them again.

4. Murray’s lack of acute angles when “attacking” with his cross-court backhand

In the early stages of the match, the Olympic champion was more than happy to blast away using his cross-court backhand, and he was going for a more acute angle than normal. This, coupled with Federer’s poor start had Murray up a break at 4-2. Murray was not only waiting for the Swiss to make a mistake, but he was looking to pull his opponent well wide with those rare injections of pace.

However, as the match progressed, Murray started hitting with less of an acute angle, straight at his opponent, making it even easier for Federer to wait out for the short ball, run around his backhand, and pounce. Not only that, but by hitting so many harmless cross-court backhands, Murray also opened up the backhand down the line for Federer.

And here is where all praise should be directed to the player who actually went out to take this match by the throat, even when he was misfiring all over the place. You can always tell how aggressive Roger Federer is trying to be by focusing on how often he goes for the backhand down the line. It might be his least reliable shot, yet he knows that in certain match-ups it becomes a key component of a strategy that can net him a few easy points.

By going down the line with his backhand, Federer forces Murray to come out of his cozy backhand corner and defend with his forehand, which more likely than not will result in a short ball that Federer can attack with his own forehand. This play has been money for Federer against players with weaker forehands throughout the years, since it forces them to defend on the run with their worst shot. In today’s match, Murray couldn’t really find an answer for Federer’s backhand down the line, and it didn’t seem like he could predict when it was coming, either.

One thing I kept being surprised by in this match was how poorly Murray was judging his own backhands. The Scot seemed utterly surprised when one of his cross-court backhands was mediocre enough for Federer to run around and belt a forehand back to him. It seemed like his brain was stuck on the simplest of gameplans: “just hit to Federer’s backhand over and over again. He’ll make a mistake!” .

*****

Still, Murray was solid enough early on to be up a break, 4-2 in the first set. Federer looked set for a quick demise – errors off both wings were the only thing flowing from the Swiss in the early goings of the match. It was so dire for Federer that his mediocrity prompted one of the most nonsensical statements I have ever heard from a tennis commentator in my life. After Murray held for 4-2, Cliff Drysdale was wondering aloud if Roger Federer had enough firepower off his “serve, forehands and backhands”.

Read that again.

It makes no sense.

However, after Murray botched an attackable forehand at 0-15 in that seventh game and sent a brainfart backhand slice into the net shortly after, the dynamic I alluded to at the beginning of this post came into play. As Murray lost the point and went down 0-30, the crowd erupted. Murray clawed back to 30-all, but then sent a comfortable backhand passing shot well long. Federer smelled blood, and pounced at a short slice from Murray with an inside-in forehand that the Scot never saw coming.

The crowd went nuts, and the set started it’s trek towards a tiebreaker. Once there, we got a microcosm of the first set: Murray went up a minibreak 3-1 after a vintage backhand shank by Federer on a neutral ball. Mirka was shown in the stands and looked exasperated.

However, the rally dynamics outlined above came into play rather quickly: on the sixth point of the tiebreaker, score 3-2 in Murray’s favor, both men played a 22 stroke rally that ended with Federer completely outmaneuvering Murray with his inside-out forehand. The Scot never really went after the point, thinking Federer was back to his point-gifting ways. He hit one short cross-court backhand too many, and Federer made him pay, thus recovering the minibreak. .

The last key point of the set (and you could argue, the match) came a few minutes later, when Andy Murray hit a second serve at 4-5. It reminded me a lot of the 15-14 point from the historical second set tiebreaker between Federer and Safin in 2004. Here is what I wrote:

15-14, Safin: This is the type of point that we see players lose to this day: enamored with forcing an error from Federer’s backhand, they feed it pace instead of spin, and eventually they get burned.

Murray hit two or three aggressive backhands straight at Federer, and after not getting the desired result, he went for an off-balance inside-in forehand that not surprisingly ended up in the net. That gave Federer two set points, and you could argue, the match.

*****

Roger Federer won this match by being unrelenting in his aggressiveness with the inside-out forehand, and also with his extremely effective second serve returns (a rarity for him). The Swiss navigated the difficult first few games, found his range, and pounced after each and every opportunity he had in the match (Murray never saved a break point).

Federer also made the match simple for himself, and exploited every single of the favorable match-ups that Andy Murray presents for his very powerful game.

At the same time, it surely had to help to see this kind of support in the stands:

In case you wonder what Murray thought about the crowd ahead of this tournament, here’s a funny picture, courtesy of the ATP site:

Would Andy Murray had won today’s match had he had a better crowd? No idea. Probably not. Surely the US Open champion needed to come out of his comfort zone to overcome the many problems he faces against an in-form Roger Federer. It was a tall task.

But as he says, “it does help when you have more support”.

Final Stats:

Juan José loves a well struck backhand down the line, statistics that tell a story, a nice lob winner, and competent returns of serve.

5 Responses

Odd match. Federer looked like he didn’t want to be out there for the first seven games, Murray for the last seven.

I thought the match turned at the 30-30 point, 4-3 Murray. Federer had just buried another regulation I-I FH in the net. Federer attacked the net on a pure bluff: Murray’s first passing shot was left up, but Federer couldn’t get anything on his volley. Murray had a sitter BH pass, and butchered it. Still, if you were cheering for Fed (like me), you probably groaned when he chose the safe BH slice return on BP. Then Murray left his own response hanging over the fat part of the plate, and this time Federer ‘s attacking FH fired.

I thought Cliff Drysdale, Patrick McEnroe and Brad Gilbert analyzed the match poorly. Murray’s had a big first serve for five years: he’s been able to hit in the high 130s since his teens – just not consistently. As you point out, his first serve didn’t help him much today (in some matches between the two, like Shanghai F 2010, it’s been the difference maker). The idea, as BG suggested early in set 1, that Murray is ATP leader on 2nd serve points is laughable – he’s 12th (Federer is first). Murray does lead on 2nd serve return points won – a different animal, no?

But I thought McEnroe and Gilbert were right to suggest that Federer would have to lift his level substantially from the round robin stages to beat Murray. Turned out I was wrong. Federer’s level did improve, but he was by no means in peak form. Instead, after going up in the TB (on a Federer shank), Murray just – went away. He was a pale imitation of the fellow who’d scrapped for three sets with Djokovic earlier in the week, or the lad who took a gold medal in London this year. Maybe the crowd had sensed who was prepared to scrap through a run of bad form, and who wasn’t. Maybe that’s why there was so much red and white in the stands.

“Maybe the crowd had sensed who was prepared to scrap through a run of bad form, and who wasn’t. Maybe that’s why there was so much red and white in the stands.”

Sort of agree. I just don’t think crowds, even crowds in Britain (the WTF crowd is also more international than Wimby, Queens or Olympics crowd IMO, which may have an effect) warm to Murray easily, not compared to the other members of the top 4. He has to show them something, not just previous wins, not even just good play, but real grit and great play, to inspire them on to his side. I remember the same thing happening when he played Rafa in the SF here in 2010 – the crowd cheered more loudly for Rafa as the players came out, but in the second set, when Murray lifted his game so much, support swung round more to his side. I don’t remember Henman ever having to earn support in that way. And, I think a large part of that is Murray’s on-court demeanour, which can be off-putting even to his fans and to people who really want him to win. (distinction as a lot of people who wanted Murray to win a slam aren’t necessarily people who’d identify themselves as Murray fans.)

“He was a pale imitation of the fellow who’d scrapped for three sets with Djokovic earlier in the week”

I thought Murray went away for a large part of that match. Scrapped back into the third set, yes, but for about a set in the middle he was negativing himself out of contention and making me roll my eyes. So, I’m not completely surprised that he did something similar at the first sign of resistance in this one.

I thought the same as Andrew: that if Federer played the way he did in the round robin he’d lose to Murray and it wouldn’t be very close. I was really surprised at Murray’s disintegration as the match wore on because he can do things–defend big pace with his backhand, serve really big at crucial moments, pass from seemingly impossible positions–that can hurt Federer. And he obviously knows how to beat Federer as he has a winning record against him. So why the sudden collapse? It might just be as simple as percentages.

When Murray beat Federer in Shanghai he was seemingly breaking the Federer serve at will, blasting winners off second serves and freaking RF out so much that he hit three double-faults in a row at one point. The strange thing about this, again as Andrew pointed out today, is that Federer has won more points off his second serve, percentage-wise, than anyone else on tour this year. So how was Murray making it look like Federer’s second serve was, well, as poor as his own? The answer is probably a combination of things, Federer having an off serving day, Murray being unusually aggressive on his return, but the mistake some of us made (at least a mistake I know that I made) was in thinking that this would be the new normal.

One of the things that people that use advanced stats in sports analytics talk about is regression to the mean. Most of the time when a player goes on a hot streak (be it high shooting percentage in hockey or basketball, high batting percentage in baseball) people make up all sorts of narratives for why this might be the case when the more probable answer is that the player is having more luck than normal. After a long enough period of time, this luck usually runs out and the player’s average regresses to the mean. So may be the case with Murray and returning Federer’s second serve. At least some of Murray’s stellar returning in the Shanghai match was probably due to luck: hitting inside the line with a shot that another time would go out; timing a return perfectly instead of mis-hitting just a bit, etc, but he, like most of us, probably chalked it up to something that he was directly controlling. The same sort of thing seemed to be working at the start of the match today, but then Murray started missing. Given Murray’s always questionable mental stability, he appeared not to treat his sudden misses as percentages catching up to him–in a sense, nothing much to worry about–but something that he must have been doing wrong, something under his control that he could fix. It was about then that he seemed to panic and the match was lost.

Federer might be able to win against other top players serving at 50%-ish or even less, but Murray can’t, on the whole – his first serve percentage needs to be above 60% at least to have a good shot, and preferably 65-70%. If it’s not, he makes it enormously difficult for himself – more so than for other members of the top 4, IMO. I also think it’s far more difficult for him to get the balance of aggression/defence right if his serve isn’t clicking.

I’d be interested to know what the percentage was for the first seven games – was this a consistent problem from the beginning? Because for all the talk on Twitter during the first few games, first serve percentage being low, if it was, should’ve been flashing a bit of a danger sign to people thinking Murray was going to run away with the match from there.

Thanks for this, Jewell. I agree completely with your first point – Murray seemed incapable of stepping into the court and being aggressive once Federer got a hold of his second serve.

About Murray’s serving percentage in the first seven games…I wish I could give you an answer. As you know, the ATP only lets you break down stats by set, but not by game. I think in the future I’ll look to do screencaps for stats midway through the set, to see if a trend is forming, or if an earlier trend disappears by the set’s end.